A new accountability architecture to enable fiscal devolution

By 2027, Mayoral Strategic Authorities will control £31bn annual spending. Following Andy Burnham's recent speech, focused on devolution, this is likely to grow. As we devolve more power, we need to strengthen local accountability to realise devolution's promise.Burnham is both right and well placed to prove that devolution done well means better living standards, less regional inequality, and a stronger national economy. It is the route to more investment, upgraded transport, strategic planning, and homes in the right places.Fiscal devolution means more powers to fund and make spending decisions locally. International evidence tells us this is key to good growth, resilience, and improved outcomes. That is the next phase if we want devolution to really improve lives.Yet this same international evidence is qualified: good governance is key to driving these outcomes. This is not only about avoiding corruption. It is about how institutions make and account for their decisions more effectively when they are constructively challenged. It enables public trust in democracy between elections and creates cultures where institutions improve over time.Accountability is central to realising devolution's promise and enabling it to evolve and endure. So, where are we today? Today's accountability system is both too weak and too strong. First, England's mayors are increasingly powerful executive actors, and rightly so. As they receive more powers and more funding, they should account for themselves more. But the local scrutiny system is too weak to support this, with problems like poor capacity, lack of strategic challenge, and a lack of profile for this important democratic work.Meanwhile, accountability to the UK government has been too strong. It dominates all other forms of accountability, absorbs capacity, shifts focus from local priorities to meeting central government diktats and limits local agency. Even integrated settlements, while better, retain the culture of asking the centre for permission that Burnham and others have criticised.Central government's laser-like focus on financial accountability has meant considerations like democratic legitimacy are overlooked. The irony is that this has failed to prevent public funds being invested poorly. By freezing out local accountability, it has actually enabled bad practice as in Tees Valley.So as MSAs take on more power, what should our accountability architecture look like?Accountability to HM Treasury for public spending remains important but is dysfunctional currently. It sustains the culture of the local being accountable to the national. Done poorly, it generates the micromanagement we see. Done well, proper systematic accountability would liberate places to make their own decisions. The Devolution and Community Empowerment Act rightly strengthened local scrutiny committees. But, we can and should go further. We recommend creating full-time, high-profile chair roles to lead committees with independently funded capacity to commission research, manage witnesses, and report findings. These would work hand-in-hand with audit committees, strengthened by audit reform and the new Local Audit Office to safeguard public confidence in how public money is spent.As MSAs mature, there is an opportunity to make the centre more responsive to what places need through piloting separate local public accounts-style committees in the Established MSAs. This would provide place-level accountability across tiers of government, exposing central government spending's effectiveness within a place and promoting place-sensitive policy and integration in the centre. It is important these are separate, overseeing collaboration across government, while local scrutiny committees provide strong checks on mayoral executive power.Accountability to HM Treasury for public spending remains important but is dysfunctional currently. It sustains the culture of the local being accountable to the national. Done poorly, it generates the micromanagement we see. Done well, proper systematic accountability would liberate places to make their own decisions. Formal accountability for public money should move out of the centre and down to MSAs, through ‘hybrid' Local Accounting Officers. Borrowing from models in Wales, English local government and Whitehall departments, these would be a new form of accountability to meet MSAs' needs. They would remain ultimately accountable to the Treasury and Parliament for legal use of public funds (as in Wales) as a backstop. But they would primarily face accountability from the local electorate through robust local democratic scrutiny and audit arrangements that we propose above.For too long, questions of accountability have been used to block devolution. But these questions now have answers. Taken together, these reforms can provide robust legitimacy and lay the groundwork for central micromanagement to recede. They shift accountability out and down, so real power can do the same. They would give the centre confidence that devolved money will be well spent while recognising the agency of the subnational state where it is competent. By making MSAs more accountable, Burnham's devolution vision can be realised. Devolution can go further and faster. Local leaders can take on fresh powers, and fiscal devolution can finally make progress.Far from blocking devolution, accountability enables it, and so this is an upgrade those of us who champion it should demand.Marcus Johns is a senior researcher at the Fabian Society and author of The Accountability Gap: How Robust Accountability can Unlock Devolution's Promise.

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DEVOLUTION

A new accountability architecture to enable fiscal devolution

By Marcus Johns | 08 July 2026

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